by Ryan Casey
He was a good man. It was because of him that she had a home. That so many people had power. Had hope.
“Once Harvey knew I was out there and that I was building myself an army of my own, he had to be very careful what he told his people. I should have realised that much. He painted us as terrorists. As bitter, vicious attackers. We don’t want to destroy what you have. We want things to be different. Because as long as Harvey is in charge of your community… I will never rest.”
She stared at those crosses. She didn’t know what to say. How to react. Only that she wasn’t expecting this one bit. She felt in total turmoil. Still trying to run from the truth. Still trying to hide from what was blatantly obvious, right before her eyes.
“Your people…”
“My people, what? Attacked Sanctuary? Sure, we’ve had shootouts in the woods.”
“You attacked us. You killed our people just days ago.”
“We couldn’t do that if we wanted to,” Yuri said. “We don’t have the power. The resources. The truth is… Harvey can only maintain control if he rules with fear over me and my people. My group, which is expanding rapidly. Who eventually will be able to launch a bigger attack. For a long time, he ignored us and didn’t make as much of a deal of us because he didn’t think we could touch him. He didn’t think we had anything on him. But when he realised it was me who was the head of the snake… well. He knew he had to step things up.”
Aoife shook her head. It was all she could do. All this time, and Harvey had been hunting down these people? Because he was afraid of the truth coming out?
A personal grudge? That’s what this came to?
Not a legitimate conflict. Not an existential threat.
But a historical personal grudge?
“You look like you don’t really know what to say,” Yuri said.
“I can’t… This can’t be true.”
“And yet you talk about seeing things. With your own eyes. Well, look. Look at my sons’ graves. Look at me. Look at me and tell me if you see a charlatan and a liar or if you see someone who has lost. Who wants to bring that bloodthirsty demon down before he destroys me and my people completely. Tell me that’s what you don’t see.”
She looked into Yuri’s eyes and saw how bloodshot they were. She saw the way his face twitched. He looked like he was almost crying.
“Tell me what you see.”
She looked at him. Then she looked down at the ground.
Harvey sent her out here. He trusted her. He trusted her because she was one of his biggest and most faithful servants.
He thought she’d get the job done, no questions asked.
He thought nothing would sway her.
But now it felt like her whole reality was falling apart.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” Yuri said. “I don’t know why I’ve kept you alive. Because you’re blinkered. You’re all blinkered. You follow in his footsteps in blind faith. But… I don’t know. There’s something different about you. Something that made me wonder, right from the first time. Maybe I’m wrong. That’s not up to me, anyway. It’s up to my people to decide your fate. And I can’t imagine things are going to go great for you if it’s left to their judgement.”
She couldn’t really process his words. She just thought of those kids she’d seen. Kids, hunted down by Harvey? Hunted down by her people?
They weren’t terrorists. They were just fighting for their own survival.
“All I want,” Yuri said, “is to be able to live in peace. All my people want is to live in peace. As long as Harvey is around, that won’t be able to happen. This isn’t about revenge. It’s about survival. And I was going to ask if you will help me. Because I thought I saw something different in your eyes. I really did.”
Aoife narrowed her eyes. “What… How do you want my help?”
“I want you to kill Harvey. I want you to take him out. That part is non-negotiable.”
Aoife shook her head. “Kill him? I’m not going to… I’m not going to fucking kill him.”
“Then your fate’s decided,” Yuri said.
He grabbed her arm, dragged her back out of the woods, back towards camp.
“Enjoy your final hours,” he said. “Because I was wrong about you. And there’s only one thing that will make my people happy now.”
He pulled her down towards the garage door again. Stopped outside.
And in the distance, Aoife saw a platform with a noose dangling from it, and she realised right away that it was for her.
“Think very carefully about the decisions you’ve made,” Yuri said.
And then he threw her into the garage and slammed the door shut, surrounding her in darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Aoife sat back in the dark, dusty garage and tried to wrap her head around everything she’d learned—and what she was going to do next.
It was always dark in here. Smelled like damp. But it was quiet. Aoife needed silence right now. She needed it to figure out how the hell she was going to go from here. What choice did she have? She was locked up. Locked up because Yuri still didn’t totally trust her, apparently. Dick.
But then, she couldn’t hold it against him.
Not if what he’d told her was true.
And why wouldn’t it be true? What reason had he given her not to believe in it?
She sat there in the darkness and kept on thinking of Yuri’s two boys, Ben and Ross. Losing their mother, Caroline. Searching desperately for some kind of home with their father, some kind of safe place.
Only to run into Harvey at the gates.
Harvey shooting them in a bitter rage.
And then hunting down and trying to wipe out Yuri’s people completely.
She shook her head. She still couldn’t accept it. Harvey seemed so friendly. He seemed so caring. Intense and passionate about his project, sure.
But he was a good man. A good man who trusted her.
You’re blinkered, and you always have been…
She remembered those words, and they stung. Was it true? Had she been so dead set on believing Sanctuary was perfect and Harvey was the ideal leader that she’d actually failed to see the cracks in the flags right before her eyes?
She didn’t know. She didn’t know a lot anymore.
But she knew one thing.
She’d seen Yuri killing her people. Good people. He’d captured Kayleigh, and Aoife had no idea where she was. So regardless of what he said, regardless of what had happened to him and his family, he was no angel.
But then, was she? After all, she’d done some pretty horrible things over the years in acts of revenge.
She was far from perfect herself. And she knew how blinkered the search for justice could make a person.
She closed her pulsating, burning eyes. She just wanted to wake up back at Sanctuary. Wake up days ago, before all this mess. Wake up in a time when things were good. When things were perfect. When she didn’t have a thing to worry about. When nobody had a thing to worry about.
And then, out of nowhere, in her mind’s eye, she saw Max.
He was looking at her like he didn’t recognise her. Shaking his head.
“What’s your problem, old man?” she said.
But he didn’t say anything to her. Just looked at her, kept on shaking his head. Like he was judging her.
“What would you have done differently?” she asked. “If you found somewhere perfect… what would you have done differently?”
He looked away, then. Faded from view.
She wanted to scream out. Wanted to cry at him to come back. Because she didn’t want to be on her own right now. She needed him right now. Needed his advice. Needed his wisdom.
But he was gone. He was long gone.
She was on her own in this one.
She thought about Yuri and what he’d been through. Thought about his goals. The survival of his people.
And she thought about what he’d said about Harvey and what Harvey wanted, too.
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To eliminate the insurgents for launching their attack on Sanctuary.
But then, had the insurgents attacked Sanctuary at all?
Or was she supposed to believe that was an inside job like he said?
She didn’t know what to think or what to believe.
Only that her time was running out.
She still couldn’t believe what Yuri had said. She certainly didn’t trust him. So she needed to know for sure.
She knew there was only one option. She didn’t know how feasible it was. She knew she was likely not getting out of this place. But she knew what she had to do, given the opportunity.
She had to confront Harvey, and she had to find out what he had to say about all this.
He deserved a chance to have his say. She couldn’t go letting herself be used as a tool by Yuri and his people when she didn’t know the full facts.
She took a deep breath, went to stand from the chair, when suddenly the door opened.
Yuri stood there. Someone by his side. “I thought you might want to see each other.”
The woman stepped into the room. Came into view.
“Kayleigh,” Aoife said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“So,” Kayleigh said.
“Yeah,” Aoife said. “’So’.”
“Not exactly the predicament I imagined us ending up in.”
“You can say that again.”
Aoife sat there in the darkness of this garage. She wasn’t tied to a chair anymore, but her wrists were still bound. The door was locked. They’d checked a couple of times. No way out of this place. Stuck in here together.
And all Aoife could think about was what Yuri had said to her.
What had happened to his children. To his two sons.
The affair he’d had with Harvey’s wife and the jealous grudge Harvey had sought out ever since.
How that jealous grudge had driven Harvey even to hunt down Yuri’s people.
And even worse than that.
According to Yuri, it’d prompted him to detonate a bomb amongst Sanctuary, all to wage a war against Yuri.
“Something doesn’t add up,” Kayleigh said.
Aoife looked at her. Staring into the darkness. Clearly just as stunned by the revelations as she was. “Huh?”
“This Yuri character. I’ll keep my voice down ’cause I’ve no doubt he’ll be listening to us. But… I dunno. Something just doesn’t seem right to me. Something just doesn’t, like, add up. I mean, I can believe Harvey’s not as clean-cut as he first seemed. But still. All this? For a fucking grudge? It sounds mad.”
Aoife nodded. “Wars have been started for less.”
“Yuri kept us alive. He’s killed our people, so many of our people. And yet he kept us alive. Why us?”
Aoife shook her head. “Maybe he hasn’t killed as many of our people as we think. Maybe it’s… maybe it’s us who’ve been the ones in the wrong all along. And they’ve just been fighting for their own survival. Just like he said.”
“I dunno, Aoife. But one thing’s for sure.”
“What’s that?”
“You’ve changed your fucking tune.”
“Huh?”
“Listen to yourself. You’re sucking off Harvey one second, his special little loyal princess. And then the second your bubble bursts, you sound like you’re gunning for him.”
Aoife looked down, shook her head. “It’s not that simple. I mean… I can’t accept it. I can’t believe what Yuri says about Harvey is true. But I need to look him in the eye, and I need to confront him about it. Because the more I see, and the more I think about it… I dunno. It’s like I’ve had a plaster on and suddenly it’s been torn off.”
Kayleigh half-smiled, nodded. “I get that. Question is, how’re we going to get out of this? Harvey might be a bad egg. But Yuri doesn’t seem much better when it comes to us lot.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Aoife said.
“And have you reached any radical solutions?”
Aoife wished she had something profound to offer. She was never usually short of ideas. Picked a bad fucking time for her mind to go blank.
“Let’s face it,” Kayleigh said. “We’re stuck in a war between two wrong’uns, and there’s no way out.”
“And that’s on me,” Aoife said. “Yeah, yeah. I get it.”
“Hey,” Kayleigh said. “Don’t go taking words out of my mouth. But no. In a way… well, whatever happens, as much as I fucking hate you for dragging me in here… I’m kind of glad it did happen.”
Aoife looked up at her. “Really?”
“At least now my suspicions that Harvey’s actually a creepy git are confirmed. Something you’ve always been too oblivious to see. If it takes almost dying to prove myself right, then that’s exactly what’s got to happen.”
Aoife smiled. She looked away. Shook her head. “If we are going to die in here, I’m glad I’m going to die with you.”
“Me too,” Kayleigh said. “Me too.”
They were quiet a little longer, sitting there in the darkness. Aoife had no idea how long had passed. But she felt weirdly calm. Her fate was out of her hands. And at the end of the day, they were relying on the mercy of a man who harboured revenge against Harvey and against his people as an extension of him. There was no point getting worked up about it. There would be no convincing him. There was nothing else to convince him about.
The man would make his mind up, and whatever happened would happen, whether they protested or not. Just had to accept that.
“If we don’t get out of this,” Kayleigh said. “I kind of wanted to say something to you.”
Aoife turned. Looked at her. She was staring at the floor, twiddling with her hands. She looked like she was lost in thought. “What?”
Kayleigh glanced up at her. An innocence to her eyes now. More like the Kayleigh she used to know. Not the hardened woman she’d become.
She opened her mouth and went to say something when the door banged open.
Aoife looked around.
Saw Yuri standing there.
By his side, two guards. Armed.
“It’s time,” Yuri said.
Aoife’s stomach turned. “Time for what?”
“Time to pay for your crimes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Aoife followed Yuri out of the garage and felt pretty fucking terrified about whatever awaited ahead.
She was blindfolded now, but her cuffs had been undone. It was like they didn’t want her to see where they were taking her. She could hear things as she walked. Voices. Whispers. She swore she felt stuff too. Things being thrown at her, not heavy stuff. Maybe just spit and that sort of shit. The people here didn’t like her or Kayleigh. They were the enemy in their eyes. They were the Sanctuary members, and Sanctuary had been hunting down their people for God knows how long.
Aoife still couldn’t believe this all boiled down to a mere grudge. That the animosity was between two men over a woman.
Classic really, wasn’t it?
Perfect, safe haven at Sanctuary, and it was a frigging love triangle that threatened to end all that was good with that place, once and for all.
Aoife walked. She felt like she’d been walking forever even though it’d probably only been minutes. She felt hot and clammy. She couldn’t stop thinking of Yuri’s words when he’d come into that garage for her and Kayleigh.
Time to pay for your crimes.
She knew what that meant. She knew there would only be one outcome for people like her. There was only ever one outcome for people like her.
They were going to be killed. She and Kayleigh were going to be killed in a show of strength. Yuri claimed his people had been hunted and slaughtered over a prolonged period. It didn’t matter what Aoife and Kayleigh said; the people here weren’t going to show any sort of compassion or forgiveness.
They were going to be out for blood.
She kept on walking until suddenly she felt herself stop.
“Up the steps,” the man behind her said. One of the two holding a gun. “Not much further.”
Aoife’s heart raced even faster. She didn’t want to walk a step further. If she climbed these steps, it’d be over. The end.
“Now,” the man said, pushing her a little further.
She climbed. Climbed up the steps. Felt like there were loads of them. And she was okay with that. She wanted them to last forever. She needed time to plan. To think.
But the more she walked, it dawned on her even more that there was nothing to plan. There was nothing to think about.
This only ended one way.
She felt the top of the steps, then the man turned her and walked her further along.
And then, one more turn, and she stopped.
She stood there. Hands on her shoulders. Not moving. Just still. Totally still.
And Aoife felt like time had stood still. She felt like this was a moment everything had been building towards. She almost didn’t want her blindfold to be pulled away. Because she was afraid.
She held her breath, her heart racing faster and faster.
And then, suddenly, her vision returned.
It was light. That was the first thing that struck her. Made her squint. Only as she blinked, she realised there were torches lighting the air up. It wasn’t day, not yet. A jet-black sky above, not a star in sight.
Ahead of her, people. Lots of people. At least fifty of them. All standing there. Many holding torches.
She saw their pale gazes. Their malnourished bodies. Men. Women. Children. These were the so-called insurgents. These were the people who’d supposedly launched an attack on Sanctuary.
These were the people she—and Harvey—had been hunting down.
She realised then where she was standing. She was on a wooden platform. And there was something in front of her.
A noose.
She looked around for Kayleigh, then. She couldn’t see her. Didn’t know where she was. Part of her felt relieved about that, that she wasn’t up here and in danger like her.
But the other part of her…
She felt alone.
And she felt afraid.